Five Top Tips to Take your Team into 2012

It’s not much fun waking up early and joining the crowds to return to work on a cold January morning.

So here are five ideas to welcome and motivate your team at the start of the New Year:

1. Restate the vision: the best teams share the same goals and values, so be sure your team knows where they are headed and why.
2. Shout about the good news: don’t let the January blues get to your team, publicise all the good stuff that’s happening in your organisation, sector and city.
3. Celebrate what’s good about 2012: the Olympics in London, Spring getting closer, new products in the pipeline.
4. Innovate together: after a break our minds are fresher and the ideas will flow. Create some time to be imaginative as a team before the routine takes over.
5. Book a team away day in the diary: now that the Christmas party is a fading memory set the date for your next team event.

Large scale team building event – when co-operation is the name of the game

The very nature of team building activities encourages participants to co-operate with their team members to achieve success, but a lot of these activities rely on competition rather than co-operation.

The Team Machine, an energetic, large scale team building exercise requiring participants to co-operate with other teams to achieve a common goal

Messages about the importance of co-operation and communication across the whole organisation rather than just within a small team can therefore be missed. With this in mind Fresh Tracks developed a new large scale team building exercise a couple of years ago – The Team Machine – based on a construction exercise that many will recognise from their childhood….

Manners versus Productivity

When I was a boy my dad used to frequently remind me of the adage: “Manners maketh the man”. Now as a parent myself I see why he did this – good manners give a child a distinct advantage over their contemporaries.

So, if manners can maketh the man, are they good for business?

Adults are more inclined to listen to the opinions of a well-mannered child, they more readily submit to their requests on hearing a sincere ‘please’ and are more likely to remember the birthday of a child who always sends a thank you note.

Despite our determination to instill these habits into the next generation, many of us seem less inclined to maintain the same degree of good manners in the workplace….

Five things a leader should do to get the best out of their team

In the numerous obituaries that have been published for Steve Jobs, the word visionary seems to be the most quoted adjective in an attempt to define his leadership style.

Steve Jobs always had a vision, even in the early days, and he knew how to inspire people with it.

There’s no doubt that teams need their leader to be clear about what they are aiming for, but it takes more than a vision to get the best from a team in the long term.  So here are five things a leader should do to get the best out of their team:…

Team Briefings – Boring or Brilliant

On 21st October Fresh Tracks hosted a seminar entitled “How to Deliver Tremendous Team Events”. In preparing the programme we’ve talked to several team leaders and one of the greatest areas of concern currently is that regular Team Briefings are lacking and ineffective. This is particularly the case in organisations undergoing change.

A good team briefing can make all the difference

In pondering how to add value to Team Briefings in the workplace I couldn’t help but wonder how Martin Johnson approaches the half time team talk he gives the England Team playing in the Rugby World Cup. These short pep-talks can make all the difference as brilliantly illustrated by Al Pacino’s character in the American Football movie: Any Given Sunday (YouTube clip).

Sometimes a pep-talk isn’t appropriate – perhaps an open discussion is a better way for the team to air their feelings; or an energising activity can be used to illustrate an important team behaviour.

Whatever the approach, it’s important that these opportunities for teams to come together aren’t wasted. In a world where most of our conversations happen via a screen we really need to make the most of face to face meetings.

This workshop has now happened so if you are interested in finding out how to deliver tremendous team events do call us on: 01920 822 220.

Feedback for the Facebook Generation

Team performance depends on a number of factors but ultimately people do their best work when they are getting regular feedback

Facebook Story from Rypple on Vimeo.

Ideally a weekly one to one with a line manager should ensure that goals are being met. The challenge in this is organising the conversation so that the right issues are discussed and that recent successes are acknowledged.

As you’d expect from the leaders in social networking, Facebook have found an online solution, see how they do it, click play on the video above.

Chocolate – good for he heart, mind and business

Fifteen years ago we created an indoor team building exercise in based on chocolate. Our research at the time found that good quality chocolate contained vitamins, antioxidants and the only edible fat that doesn’t fur the arteries.

Chocolate – good for he heart, mind and business

This week the BMJ (British Medical Journal) published a comprehensive study (external link to BMJ) suggesting that eating chocolate (in moderation) can reduce the likelihood of heart disease by up to 37%.

So not only does chocolate make you feel good, it can help your heart and if eaten with your colleagues can build your team.

Find out more about our chocolate team building event.

5 Tips To Get New Teams Performing

Remember Bruce Tuckman’s wise words about new teams are as true now as they were 50 years ago: A new team will go through 4 stages of development Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing.

Having a high performing team does require all members to function as a unit but using this extreme a method to make this point is not necessary!
If you find yourself leading a new team here are 5 ways to get your gang performing from the outset:…

It’s national Play Day on 3rd August and yes this affects your workplace!

Wednesday 3rd August is National Play Day, inspired in part by the fact that over 80% of adults feel that children should be encouraged to play more outdoors because it builds community spirit. Yet we live in a society where just 20% of children play outside their homes, whereas 30 years ago that figure was 70%.

“If you want your people to be more creative, give them more time to play” John Cleese

Play isn’t just diminishing in the lives of children. As workplaces become busier and leaner there is less time for informal conversations and light hearted activity. This drive for efficiency might not be quite as good for business as you’d think. Comedian, psychologist and successful businessman in his own right John Cleese said “If you want your people to be more creative, give them more time to play.”…

Team Building For A Good Cause

With the number of disgraced companies rising every month – starting with Enron, then BP last year and now News International – the Corporate Social Responsibility agenda shows little sign of diminishing.  Added to this is the fact that increasing numbers of employees are saying that they are keen to ‘give something back’ and ‘make a difference’ through their work.